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You probably won't want to replace all your call center PCs with iPads, and doing "real" support work likely requires a full keyboard. But we're betting at least a few of your customer support staff have to either take work home with them or monitor issues outside of the office. Accessing the customer service help desk from the road probably isn't a good justification for buying an iPad, unless you have a lot of reps in the field using help desk software. But help desk access is a good use for iPads that your company or your employees already won.

The help desk for the iPad market seems to be just getting started. Here's a look at what's available so far.

Six months ago we did an overview of trends in the idea management market. At the time, most of the action was going on in the internal idea/innovation management area. This time around, the new trends are emerging around externally focused idea management solutions.

Each of the three trends we identified six months ago now has a corollary trend.

Companies such as Dell and Starbucks have created public facing websites for gathering ideas from customers. These two examples are powered by Salesforce.com's idea management module, but there are many other options. Facebook is an increasingly popular place for people to interact with companies, so it's a great place collaborate with your customers on their ideas. Spigit just launched its idea management app for Facebook today, but there are others.

Plenty of people have tried to make customer service "fun." If you've ever worked a customer service job, you may have seen a FISH! Training Video. But chances are a video about a bunch of happy-go-lucky fish throwers somewhere in Seattle didn't make working the swing shift at a call center for minimum wage any better. (Apparently, those videos don't make the people who actually work at that fish stand very happy either.)

This week UserVoice, the idea management/customer feedback software-as-service we've raved about, announced that it's getting into the hosted help desk business. And UserVoice hopes to make customer service fun by adding game mechanics to the help desk. The target audience is different - UserVoice is targeting application support teams, not contact centers - but the idea is the same: to make customer service fun.

UserVoice, one of our favorite idea management services, launched a new API today. UserVoice has completely revamped its API, which is available in two varieties: a free read-only version and a more powerful commercial version. The company built its new Facebook Page App and iPhone SDK using the new API.

The read/write enterprise isn't just about using social media in the enterprise - increasingly, it's about employees actively choosing the technologies they use to get their jobs done instead of relying on decrees from on high about what sorts of technology to use. The term "Shadow IT" refers to "IT systems and IT solutions built and used inside organizations without organizational approval." In the past few years, it's gone from being cosidered a problem to being consider something to be embraced and learned from. Thanks to SaaS, entire companies have been built on Shadow IT decisions.

Idea management software seeks two "holy grails" of enterprise collaboration technology: 1) innovation and 2) the breaking down of silos. Enterprise idea management has been around for over 10 years, but according to Mark Turrell, co-founder of pioneering idea management company Imaginatik and current CEO of Orcasci, there's been an "explosion of interest" in the field in the past 18 months. Here are a few of the trends in the area that we've noticed.

Over the weekend we had a chance to highlight Graphic.ly - a company that opted to release early (and imperfectly) in exchange for valuable user feedback. As companies look to their peers and audiences to help define product features, there's a greater need for scalable testing platforms. Here's a summary of eight useful services that will help put you on the path to product greatness.

MeasuredUp is a review service that allows customers to share their positive and negative experiences about local or online businesses, but until now, these businesses did not really have a chance to reach out to these customers through the service and rectify potential customer service issues. Now, MeasuredUp has introduced a new featured, Direct Connect, which allows companies to claim their identity on the service and reach out to their customers.